Fair: Independent 2024, New York

For its second participation in Independent New York, Sans titre presents a solo project by Sequoia Scavullo.

Born in 1995 in Baltimore, Scavullo graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris last year. She practices oil painting in large format, surveying the shadowy zone between abstraction and figuration. Worked in layers and flaked in strata, the tones resist definition: between withered petals, palpitating flesh, and mineral grayness. No obvious colors, because everything is blended, become texture. The effect is of a rather liquid state, aqueous and foggy, propitious to the dissolution of certainty. Exhibited at Sans titre for her first solo show in France last summer, her presentation for Independent is composed of a new body of works, with the addition of a sculptural work.

Scavullo’s compositions repeatedly refer to her personal history and dreams. In the Taino culture from which her family is originated, dream and waking states are not distinguished; the artist draws significant inspiration from the traditional techniques of dream analysis and the culture’s holistic approach to the world at large.

Central to her work is a reflection on non-verbal communication. The artist created her own symbolic alphabet, elements of which appear in most of her paintings. In this way, the artist generates a new language while reminding us that painting, as an artistic language, has the ability to convey emotions more complex than words can express.

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Sequoia Scavullo (born in 1995, Baltimore) lives and works in Paris. She studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris with Mimosa Echard.

Sequoia Scavullo has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Sans titre, Paris (2023); Kunstverein Bielefeld (2022); Pigment Sauvage, Baltimore (2019).

Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at Bibeau Kruger (with Sylvie Hayes-Wallace), San Francisco (2024); Mécènes du Sud, Montpellier (2023); FRAC Corsica (2023); After Hours, Paris (2023); Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris (2024 & 2022); Exo Exo, Paris (2022); POUSH-Manifesto, Paris (2021); Haimney Gallery, Barcelona (2020); La Volonté, Paris (2020); Dorchester Art Gallery, Boston (2019); Piano Craft Gallery, Boston (2019); High Zero Foundation, Baltimore (2019); Barbara and Steve Grossman Gallery, Boston (2019); Yale Norfolk Galleries (2019).
Later this year, Scavullo will be included in group exhibitions at Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal (June 2024) and she will be part of a residency program at Corsica Luce, Nonza.

The artist received the Diptyque price for contemporary art, curated by Jérôme Sans (2022); the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Prize (2021); the Dean’s Research Award (2019); the Dona Pond Painting Award (2019) and the Will and Elena Barnet Painting Award (2017).
She has participated in the KHIAL NKHEL residency program, Morocco (2018) and the Yale Norfolk program, Ellen Battell Stoeckel (2017).

Sequoia Scavullo’s works are featured in public collections such as FRAC Bretagne and FRAC Corsica.